Introducing the Stations of the Cross at the start of Holy Week 2024 in St Alban’s Church, Holborn

‘Jesus dies on the cross’ … Station 12 in the Stations of the Cross by Hans Feibusch in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Holy Week began today and at the Palm Sunday liturgy in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning, I was involved as the narrator in the reading of the Passion Narrative.

In previous years, my reflections in Lent, in Passiontide or in Holy Week, my reflections have looked at the Stations of the Cross in a variety of locations including: Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford (2018); Saint John’s Well, Millstreet, Co Cork (2018); the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (2018); Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (2019); Gormanston College, Co Meath (2019); Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth (2019); the Church of the Annunciation, Clonard, Wexford (2022); Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (2022); Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (2023); and Saint Frances de Sales Church, Wolverton (2023).

This afternoon, on Palm Sunday, as we enter Holy Week and prepare for Good Friday and Easter Day, I am looking at the Stations of the Cross in Saint Alban’s Church, in Holborn, London.

I was in Saint Alban’s Church last month for the annual ‘Founder’s Day’ or Bray Day, organised by SPCK (Society for the Promoting Christian Knowledge) and USPG (United Society Propagation of the Gospel), both founded by Thomas Bray.

Saint Alban’s is a well-known but well-hidden church between the City of London and the West End. A beautiful Victorian church, it was rebuilt after World War II, and has a striking mural on the east wall and Stations of the Cross by the German-Jewish painter and sculptor Hans Feibusch (1898-1998).

Hans Feibusch arrived in England in 1933 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. After World War II, he became known for his church murals and he was baptised and joined the Church of England in 1963. He worshipped at Saint Alban’s, where the east wall mural is his largest.

Hans Feibusch also painted the 14 Stations of the Cross in Saint Alban’s, where they were marouflaged to the north and south walls of the church in 1969-1970. Feibusch is also the artist of the sculpture ‘Jesus being Raised from the Dead’ (1985) at the entrance to the church.

In the last years of his life, Hans Feibusch returned to the Judaism of his youth and he was buried with Jewish rites at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery in 1998.

Station 1, Jesus is condemned to death

‘Jesus is condemned to death’ … Station 1 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In Station I, Christ stands alone in Pilate’s Court – perhaps by the pillar at which he has been scourged. In his hand he holds a reed or rod, a simple robe hangs on his shoulders has a crown of thorns is on his head. All are part of the ritual in which he was mocked and scorned after being brought before Pilate (Matthew 27; 28-30; Mark 16: 17; John 19: 2; cf Luke 23: 11).

Station 2, Jesus accepts his Cross

‘Jesus accepts his Cross’ … Station 2 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At Station II, Christ takes the cross on his shoulders. Saint John’s Gospel alone says that Christ carried the cross by himself (John 19: 17); the other three Gospels say Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross behind him.

Station 3: Jesus falls for the first time

‘Jesus falls for the first time’ … Station 3 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At Station III, Christ falls beneath the weight of his Cross. This is one of the traditional Stations of the Cross that depict Passion scenes that are not recalled in any of the Gospel accounts.

Station 4: Jesus meets his mother Mary

‘Jesus meets his mother Mary’ … Station 4 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At Station IV, Christ meets his Mother Mary. Perhaps he drops his Cross forgetfully as he rushes towards her and she rushes towards him. She stretches out both hands as if she is about to embrace him; he has one arm around her neck, his right hand clutching her left shoulder. But his other arm is being pulled back by the arm of another, a soldier, an official, someone who has also been brutalised.

Station 5: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

‘Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross’ … Station 5 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At Station V, we meet Simon of Cyrene, who is compelled to carry Christ’s Cross, according to all three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 27: 32; Mark 15: 21-22; Luke 23-26).

Station 6: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

‘Veronica wipes the face of Jesus’ … Station 6 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Station VI tells a story not told in any of the four Gospels, although there are some parallels with the story of the woman who was healed miraculously by touching the hem Christ’s garment (Luke 8: 43-48). In popular depictions of this station, Veronica is often seen on her knees, offering her veil with both hands. Christ stretches out to receive the veil, while Simon of Cyrene continues to prop up the Cross. According to tradition, Veronica is moved with sympathy when she sees Christ carrying his cross and gives him her veil to wipe his forehead. When he hands back the veil, it is marked with the image of his face.

Station 7: Jesus falls for the second time

‘Jesus falls for the second time’ … Station 7 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Station VII also illustrates a story that is not told any of the four Gospel accounts of Christ’s journey to Calvary, although the popular numbering of three falls may have a Trinitarian intention. In this station, Christ falls to his knees beneath the weight of his cross. As children, we used to say: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names shall never hurt me.’ Do those who force Christ to carry his cross beat him as he falls with sticks and stones? Do they berate him verbally and call him names?

Station 8: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

‘Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem’ … Station 8 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Luke alone among the Gospel writers tells the story recalled in Station VIII, where Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem:

A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’ (Luke 23: 26-35).

The ‘Daughters of Jerusalem’ are mentioned several times in the Song of Solomon (see 1: 5, 2: 7, 3: 10-11, 5: 8, 5: 16). For example: ‘O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love’ (Song of Solomon 5: 8).

Station 9: Jesus falls a third time

‘Jesus falls a third time’ … Station 9 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Station IX is another of the traditional stations that does not recall an event in any of the passion narratives in the four Gospels. The third fall, like the other two falls, is not mentioned in the Gospel accounts of the Passion, but the incident is part of traditional Christian piety and Station IX in the Stations of the Cross.

Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his clothes

‘Jesus is stripped of his clothes’ … Station 10 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Station X depicts a scene described in all four Gospels:

And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots; then they sat down there and kept watch over him (Matthew 27: 35-36).

And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. (Mark 15: 24).

And they cast lots to divide his clothing (Luke 23: 34).

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,
‘They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots’ (John 19: 23-24).

Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross

‘Jesus is nailed to the cross’ … Station 11 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In Station XI, Christ is nailed to the cross. When I search for ‘Nails’ on Google, trying any of the towns I have lived in, I get endless lists of nail bars offering glamorous treatments that I am never going to contemplate or need. But there is nothing glamorous about the nails and hands in Station XI in the Stations of the Cross.

Two thieves will also be nailed to two more crosses on the hilltop. One will ask for mercy and forgiveness and he will receive the promise he seeks from Christ.

In a Byzantine-style crucifix by Laurence King (1907-1981) in the crypt of the Church of Saint Mary le Bow on Cheapside in London, the Cross is placed between the words: ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the Sins of the World.’

Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross

‘Jesus dies on the cross’ … Station 12 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In Station XII, the Crucified Christ dies between the two thieves on either side. At the top of the Cross are the words written by Pilate, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ In Saint Luke’s Gospel alone, the Penitent Thief cries out: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Luke 23: 42).

When Christ dies on the Cross in Station XII, the group at the foot of the Cross are mainly women. The Gospel writers say many women were there (Matthew 27: 55; Luke 23: 55), and they name his mother Mary (John 19: 25-27), her sister Mary, the wife of Clopas (John 19: 25), Mary Magdalene (Matthew 27: 56; Mark 15: 40, 47; John 19: 25), Mary the mother of James and Joseph (Matthew 27: 56; Mark 15: 40, 47), Mary the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Matthew 27: 56), and Salome (Mark 15: 40).

The only man at the Cross on Good Friday, apart from those who condemned Christ and the two thieves, is Saint John the Beloved Disciple (John 19: 26).

Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross

‘Jesus is taken down from the cross’ … Station 13 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Sometimes, Station XIII is described as ‘The Body of Jesus Is Placed in the Arms of his Mother.’ In the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke say Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, took the body, and wrapped it a clean linen cloth (Matthew 27: 28; Mark 15: 43, 46; Luke 23: 50-53); Saint John’s Gospel adds that Nicodemus helped Joseph with the preparation of the body for burial.

None of the Gospels says that the Virgin Mary held the body of her son when he was taken down from the Cross and before he was buried. But this has become a popular image in Passion scenes, from Michelangelo’s Pieta to the statues that dominate Good Friday processions today in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

The Mother who once cradled the Infant Child on her lap, now holds her dead son on her lap. The hands once raised in adoration and in love, are now raised in horror and in anguish. Had she known that this was the end, would she have said yes to the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation when he greeted her with those words, ‘Ave Maria, Hail Mary’?

Does she remember now how she once cradled the Christ Child on her lap? Are the grave clothes he is to be wrapped in as he is laid in the grave a reminder to her of the swaddling clothes she wrapped him in as she laid him down to sleep in his crib in Bethlehem?

Station 14: Jesus is placed in the tomb

‘Jesus is placed in the tomb’ … Station 14 in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

When Christ is laid in the tomb at Station XIV, the Virgin Mary, hands crossed as if she is about to approach the Altar at the Eucharist to receive the Body of Christ, watches as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus gently lay Christ’s body in the grave.

Nicodemus who came to see Christ under the cover of darkness, now prepares to bury his body before darkness falls. Nicodemus who had questions and doubts, now holds the Body of Christ in his hands. Nicodemus has become a full communicant member of the Church.

In death he knows what is meant by new birth.

‘The Body of Christ given for you.’

‘Amen.’

But this is not the end.

There are seven days of creation. God’s work is complete and God rests on the seventh day; now Christ is to rest in the grave on the seventh day, his work is complete.

Early on Sunday morning, before dawn on the first day of the week, the women come to the tomb with spices they have prepared. But they find the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, there is no body, and two men in dazzling clothes ask them ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen’ (Luke 24: 5). There is a similar greeting in the other two Synoptic Gospels: ‘He is not here; for he has been raised’ (Matthew 28: 6); ‘He has been raised; he is not here’ (Mark 16: 6).

The Cross is empty.

The Grave is empty.

We have Good News to proclaim.

‘Jesus being Raised from the Dead’ (1985), a sculpture by Hans Feibusch (1898-1998), at the entrance to Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Stations of the Cross in Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, and Saint Dunstan and All Saints, Stephney (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Saint Alban the Martyr, Father Mackonochie’s celebrated church in a hidden corner in Holborn

Saint Alban’s is a well-known but well-hidden church in Holborn, designed by William Butterfield in 1859 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was in London last week for the annual ‘Founder’s Day’ or Bray Day, organised jointly by SPCK (Society for the Promoting Christian Knowledge) and USPG (United Society Propagation of the Gospel), both founded by Thomas Bray.

Bray Day is celebrated each year on 15 February. This year’s celebrations took place in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, and the preacher was the former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries (Baron Harries of Pentregarth). His sermon on ‘Poetry’ drew on many of the ideas in his 2022 Lent book Hearing God in Poetry: Fifty Poems for Lent and Easter, published by SPCK.

Saint Alban’s Church is dedicated to Saint Alban, the first English saint martyr. It is a well-known but well-hidden church between the City of London and the West End, and serves a part of London known for the jewellery business in the Hatton Garden area and for law firms. It is a beautiful Victorian church, rebuilt after World War II, and with a striking mural on the east wall by Hans Feibusch.

Saint Alban’s was built on the site of Fagin’s Den in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The site for the church was donated by William Henry Leigh (1824-1905), 2nd Baron Leigh. For Charles Dickens, this was the site of ‘A Thieves’ Kitchen’ or Fagin’s Den in Oliver Twist. The church was designed by William Butterfield in 1859 and was built in 1861-1862 with funds from the financier and banker John Hubbard (1805-1899), 1st Baron Addington, described over the entrance merely as ‘a Merchant of London.’

Saint Alban’s is one of Butterfield’s finest mature works, and remains a powerful composition. As with All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, Saint Alban’s shows Butterfield’s skill in to working with a difficult, almost impossible site. It is a Gothic-style church, built in red and yellow stock bricks with stone dressings, tiled roofs and with seven bays, and tall, narrow, geometric traceried windows.

It is a tall, wide, aisled church with short transepts abutting the west tower with a saddleback roof. The restrictions of the site forced a blank east wall. The entrance is through the south transept which forms a small chapel.

Lord Addington, who financed the church building, is described over the church door as ‘a Merchant of London’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Revd Alexander Heriot Mackonochie (1825-1887) was appointed the first perpetual curate or Vicar of Saint Alban’s in 1862. As an undergraduate at Wadham College, Oxford (1844-1848), Mackonochie heard Pusey preach and got to know many of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement.

After curacies in Westbury, Wiltshire, and Wantage, Berkshire, Mackonochie become a curate at Saint George’s-in-the-East, London, in 1858. There he worked with Charles Fuge Lowder (1820-1880) as a mission priest in the slum areas of London Docks. At this time, Saint George’s-in-the-East was a focus for anti-Ritualist rioting, when services were disrupted and stones were thrown at the mission’s priests.

Mackonochie was appointed to Saint Alban’s in 1862. In a letter to Hubbard, the patron of Saint Alban’s, he outlined his theological stand, including his agreement with George Anthony Denison’s ideas Catholic ideas about the Eucharist.

The church was surrounded by the Holborn slums and new Victorian tenement blocks. Mackonochie worked for the construction of many model dwellings in the parish, including Tyndall Buildings, Evelyn Buildings and Saint Alban’s Buildings. Many of the residents of these buildings included soap boilers, tailors, clothes makers, labourers and mechanics.

Mackonochie’s pastoral approach was typical of the ministry of the 19th century Anglo-Catholic ‘slum priests.’ With his two curates, the Revd Arthur Henry Stanton and the Revd Edward Francis Russell, and the support of lay members of the parish, he founded schools, soup kitchens, a working men’s club, mothers’ meetings, clothing funds and more.

Inside Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At Saint Alban’s, Mackonochie introduced a daily Eucharist, Gregorian chant and ritual details such as lit candles on the altar and cleansing the eucharistic vessels at the altar. This was the first Anglican church to hold the three-hour devotion on Good Friday (1864) and one of the first to celebrate a Harvest Festival. The use of Incense began at Epiphany 1866. Mackonochie also heard confessions.

From 1867, Mackonochie was also chaplain of the sisterhood of Saint Saviour and the sisters and sisters of the Clewer Community of Saint John Baptist worked in the parish.

Mackonochie became known as ‘the martyr of Saint Alban’s’ and was regularly the target of protests by evangelical or Low Church activists protesting against his ‘ritualism’. But throughout Mackonochie’s later persecution, Saint Alban’s remained a thriving Anglo-Catholic parish.

John Martin was supported by the Church Association when he brought a prosecution against Mackonochie in 1867 under the Church Discipline Act 1840. The charges referred to the priest elevating the host above his head, using a mixed chalice and altar lights, censing things and persons, and kneeling during the prayer of consecration.

Inside Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Court of Arches decided against Mackonochie on two counts and in his favour on the other three, with no decision as to the payment of costs. Mackonochie agreed to comply, but the anti-ritualists appealed to the Privy Council, which found against him on the remaining three charges and ordered him to pay all costs.

Even after the prosecution, the Church Association continued to pursue Mackonochie, saying he had re-introduced the prohibited ritual, and on 25 November 1870 he was suspended from office for three months.

He had become a hate-figure for the Low Church, he was banned from preaching in the Diocese of Ripon, and the Irish-born Dean of Ripon, Hugh M’Neile (1796-1879), refused to speak at the Liverpool Church Congress because Mackonochie would also speak. When Thomas Macaulay was speaking in the House of Commons on the Maynooth Endowment Bill, he described M’Neile as ‘the most powerful representative of uncompromising Protestant opinion in the country.’ Even Queen Victoria was appalled by M’Neile’s bigotry, expressing her dismay at his anti-Catholic fervour.

A second lawsuit was brought against Mackonochie in March 1874, repeating the old charges and adding new ones, including processions with a crucifix, the use of the Agnus Dei, and facing east during the consecration. Mackonochie stood firm in the face of the prosecutions, but on 12 June 1875 was found against on most of the charges and suspended for six weeks.

John Martin appealed to the Dean of Arches in 1878, claiming Mackonochie had not obeyed the 1875 judgment. Mackonochie was brought before a new court created by the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, and he was suspended for three years.

A fresh round of prosecutions was under way in 1882 when, at the deathbed request of Archbishop Archibald Campbell Tait, Mackonochie resigned from Saint Alban’s to move to Saint Peter’s, London Docks, the church founded by CF Lowder in 1866. By then, the mob violence that Mackonochie had faced mob violence during his time with Lowder in the 1850s and 1860s. This had abated by the 1880s, but had the prosecutions continued.

Despite the vibrancy of Saint Peter’s, Mackonochie was unhappy. He had moved from Saint Alban’s out of a sense of duty, but missed his old parish. His self-confidence was waning and by July 1883 he faced yet another suspension. Knowing that suspension would be disastrous for the parish, Mackonochie resigned from Saint Peter’s in December 1883, only a year after resigning from Saint Alban’s.

A memorial to Father Mackonochie in the courtyard at Saint Alban’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Instead of moving to another parish, Mackonochie moved into the Clergy House at Saint Alban’s, where he worked as an assistant priest. He died on 15 December 1887, aged 62. He was described by a contemporary as bringing ‘light into the dark places, and beauty and orderliness and peace before weary eyes and harassed minds, and sweet and ennobling music to ears accustomed to discordant curses, and screams of anger, and cries of pain.’

Mackonochie’s curate, the Revd Arthur Henry Stanton (1839-1913), remained a curate at Saint Alban’s (1862-1913), an indefatigable champion of the poor, a staunch champion of rituals, and an exuberant preacher.

A chapel added to the church in 1891 was designed by Charles Henry Money Mileham (1837-1917), with stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe (1898). It also has two of the original Stations of the Cross by Ninian Comper.

A statue of Saint Alban, the first English martyr and saint, in Saint Alban’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church hosted the first complete performance in England of Olivier Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur in 1938, and played by the composer.

The church was burned out during the London Blitz in 1941, although the 1891 chapel survived. The church and the attached clergy house have been Grade II* listed buildings since 1951.

The main church was restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott’s grandson, Adrian Gilbert Scott (1882-1963), in 1959-1961, with a new organ by John Compton. Scott’s simple but dignified scheme incorporated several features of the old building, but replaced Butterfield’s elaborate decoration. The tower opens into the nave through a great arch by Butterfield. The arcade was rebuilt with stone at the lower levels and rendered above.

‘The Trinity in Glory’, the mural by Hans Feibusch, covers the east wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The east wall of Saint Alban’s is covered by a mural, ‘The Trinity in Glory’ (1966) by the German-Jewish painter and sculptor Hans Feibusch (1898-1998), who also painted the Stations of the Cross. Feibusch arrived in England in 1933 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. After World War II, he became known for his church murals and he was baptised and joined the Church of England in 1963. He worshipped at Saint Alban’s, where the east wall mural is his largest.

‘The Trinity in Glory’ is a celebration of liberation, depicting Christ’s manifesto in the words of Isaiah that has fuelled and continues to fuel the ministry of this church. The mural measures 8.8 metres by 15.2 metres (29 ft by 50 ft) and depicts more than 50 principal figures. Feibusch completed the work with the assistance of Phyllis Bray in only three months. Among those 50 principal figures, Father Mackonochie is shown wearing green vestments, together with other clergy who have served Saint Alban's, including the Vicar at the time of the painting, Father Peter Priest.

‘Jesus being Raised from the Dead’ (1985), a sculpture by Hans Feibusch (1898-1998), at the entrance to the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Feibusch also painted the 14 Stations of the Cross, which were marouflaged to the north and south walls of the church in 1969-1970, and he is the artist of the sculpture ‘Jesus being Raised from the Dead’ (1985) at the entrance to the church.

In the last years of his life, Feibusch returned to the Judaism of his youth and he was buried with Jewish rites at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery in 1998.

The Mackonochie chapel survived the bombing during World War II, and it has stained glass 1885 and 1898 by CE Kempe (1885 and 1898) and two of the original Stations of the Cross by Sir Ninian Comper (1912).

Father Mackonochie depicted in green robes in ‘The Trinity in Glory’, the mural by Hans Feibusch in Saint Alban’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Alban’s hosted the foundation of Affirming Catholicism, representing a liberal strand of Anglo-Catholicism, in 1990. But the church is now a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parish under the Alternative Episcopal Oversight of Bishop Jonathan Baker of Fulham.

Father Christopher Smith has been the Vicar of Saint Alban’s since 2011. He is the tenth vicar and succeeded Father Howard Levett who retired in 2010. The Revd Duncan Hegan is the curate; he is originally from Bangor, Co Down, and was ordained last year.

• Saint Alban’s Church emphasises the sacramental life of the Church, and is open every day. On Sundays, Family Mass is at 9:30 and Solemn Mass at 11 am. Coffee is served between the two masses. Mass is celebrated in the Mackonochie Chapel, Monday to Friday at 12:30.

Looking out onto the world … the entrance to Saint Alban’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Catherine Fox’s reminder of Covid’s cold climate and hope after that apocalypse is not disaster

Patrick Comerford

COVID has not gone away. It is still here, and it is still killing people. I am due to receive my fifth vaccine at the Open University in Milton Keynes later this week (22 May 2023), and we still have self-testing kits in the bathroom cabinet.

Without the vaccines, without self-isolation, without people working from home, the impact of the pandemic may have been more devastating. Who knows whether the emergence of a new and deadlier variant has been forestalled or is still going to catch us all unawares?

How quickly we forget. At the moment, we cannot forget the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and we continue to be faced with gaps on supermarket shelves and soaring food prices that are blamed on ‘supply chain problems’ and not on Brexit.

But how quickly, I fear, we have forgotten the cargo ship jammed in the Suez Canal, the last planes from Afghanistan, petrol shortages and gridlock outside petrol stations, the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, people singing opera to each other from balconies in Italy, the tsunami in Tonga, Prince Andrew, Djokovic at the Australian Open, the closure of Debenhams … migrants drowning in the Channel.

Some people want to forget COVID, and while we were there some people tried to ignore and to deny COVID. Some mad-caps, right up to the White House, tried to dismiss it all as a conspiracy. But real people and real families, real communities and real parishes suffered – and remain traumatised.

So that we do not forget the impact of COVID – and the lessons we have learned during the pandemic – we need both historians and novelists to tell the story. Historians can help us to remember and analyse the causes and consequences of events over these past few years. But novelists are going to remind us of its social impacts: some heart-breaking, but some heart-warming.

Is our communal experience of COVID going to produce literature and poetry? Catherine Fox has started us on the road with The Company of Heaven, her fifth and latest account of daily life in the Diocese of Lindchester, our very own 21st century Barchester.

We are invited into ‘the valley of the shadow of COVID’, where she finds ‘a silver lining to the COVID clouds’ as we spend 12 random days over 12 months in Lindfordshire, rummaging through 12 baskets full of broken fragments.

Our hearts are still hanging in the willows by the waters of COVID. We are still in exile. Lest we forget, she reminds us of the days of facemasks in churches, blankets in pubs, perspex screens between tables in restaurants, repurposed car parks, the rule of six, and the neck-and-neck race between the search for vaccines and the emergence of new variants.

These were the days when we kept doors open to keep air circulating, and when the return of football was accompanied by the return of naked racism.

There are new words than I find difficult to take on, such as ‘Anglicanly’ and ‘Brexchatology’ – hopefully they never appear as answers in the Guardian Quick Crossword.

There are curious conundrums about cutting diamonds, the size of pearls in the Pearly Gate, and why Harry Potter didn’t magic himself 20/20 vision so he wouldn’t need glasses. There are discussions about the genesis of figs and pearls, and a reminder that 42 is the meaning of life.

But real theological and pastoral dilemmas and challenges are posed too. How do I look God in the face when it turns out my best was worse than doing nothing would have been?

At one point, there is a knowing hint that clergy in particular identify with Lindchester: ‘Let the ordained reader understand.’ But there are home truths for every reader.

I too, in previous roles, know the toll on students and academic colleagues of a devastating, career-destroying Turnitin report. As I read about the temporary suspension of the Bishop of Sidcup, clergy disciplinary measures facing a former Bishop of Lindchester, and the links with a possible transfer to York, I was also reading the news in the Church Times that Archbishop John Sentamu has had his PTO (permission to officiate) suspended.

This book is a reminder that real life, and Church life, are inexplicably cruel. We all know only too well that ‘grief is just part of being human.’

But have we learned anything? The forgetfulness of Father Dominic Todd’s mother advances with age and with dementia. As time moves on, have we forgotten the names of variants and the numbers of deaths announced each day?

Lest we forget, this was the era of Dominic Cummings and of Partygate. We still sang hymns behind facemasks. Elderly people in care homes and people with dementia suffered emotionally and psychologically while the ‘impudence of impudent politicians’ went unchecked.

The ‘fatuous war against woke’ continues, the promise on the side of red buses of £350 million a week for the NHS has never been delivered.

Lindchester, we are reminded, is somewhere between Lichfield and Chester. The pilgrim route between Chester and Lichfield is known as the ‘Two Saints Way’ and the countryside of Linfordshire seems to be a recreation of the countryside along that route, particularly as it approaches Lichfield along Cross in Hand Lane. The Close in Lindchester and its residents continue to recreate images of the Cathedral Close in Lichfield and life there. Indeed, since Adrian Dorber retired, Lichfield Cathedral has a woman (acting) dean.

But since the Lindchester Chronicles began, Catherine Fox has moved on from Lichfield, first to Liverpool and now to Sheffield. There are hints that in future years we may hear more about Liverpool – Janes Rossiter finds a new family in Liverpool; and more about Sheffield – this volume is dedicated to the Steel City Choristers.

But today Catherine Fox is cutting as she recalls that while we queued in long lines in the rain for boosters or cried and wept at pared-down weddings and funerals, rule-breaking Christmas parties were taking place in Downing Street. ‘Far off in Westminster pages are snatched from the Trump playbook … Let posh boys have the mastery … the rules don’t apply to … the Bullingdon Club.’

She describes the NHS as ‘underfunded, overstretched, simultaneously utterly brilliant and dismayingly crap.’ The general public continues to pick up the slack for a decade of underfunding. As I head off for my next vaccine this week, I too am wondering when we are going to see that £350 million a week being invested in the NHS.

We are all tourists on a live volcano. ‘What shall we rise to tomorrow? A glorious heaven? Or an ever-deepening hell?’ The Extinction Rebellion protests continue, the fast-rising cost of living remains unchecked, the war in Ukraine rages on. This remains a divided nation. But there is hope in Leah Rogers, who is Linford’s Greta Thunberg, and all the Leahs across this land. Ellis Gray’s reclamation yard is a metaphor for the truth that we can all be ‘ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.’

As we spend another year in Lindford in The Company Heaven, we are caught between one Easter and the next, without celebrating Easter itself. But, as we are reminded, the Church exists between two resurrections. There is hope: apocalypse means revelation, not disaster.

At one level, we are reminded ach of those 12 days that ‘Thou God Seest Me.’ But at another level we are invited to join in the task of separating the weft of joy from the warp of woe. As Paver writes in his September book: ‘Your faults and scars are part of you, part of your history. There is a star in your heart. So don’t be scared. Let it be part of you.’

‘High above, behind the clouds, ten thousand, thousand stars also shine, although we cannot see them.’

• Catherine Fox, Company of Heaven, was published on 18 May 2023 by Marylebone House (SPCK), London: 288 pp, £10.99, ISBN-13: 9781910674673, 9781910674680

Francis Hutchinson, Rector of Passeham who was also a bishop in Ireland

A man and his daughter by the Flemish painter Jan Vierpyl (1721) … now believed to depict Bishop Francis Hutchinson (National Gallery of Ireland)

Patrick Comerford

I took a walk along the banks of the Great Ouse River between Stony Stratford and Passenham during the weekend. Earlier, I had finished writing a magazine feature that refers to the church in Passenham, where the dedication to Saint Guthlac (674-715) is rare.

About 1,000 years after Saint Guthlac, Francis Hutchinson was the Rector of Passenham in 1706-1727, and was also Bishop of Down and Connor from 1720 until his death in 1739. He was a key figure in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and was obsessed with witchcraft and with trying to convert Irish-speaking population of Rathlin Island.

But how did this 18th century bishop in the Church of Ireland find himself in this small parish in the Diocese of Peterborough and this small village in Northamptonshire, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes?

Francis Hutchinson (1660-1739) was born in Carsington in Derbyshire, on 2 January 1660. He studied at Catherine Hall, Cambridge (BA 1680, MA 1684, DD 1698), and was ordained deacon (1683) and priest (1684) by Henry Compton, Bishop of London.

He was first a curate (lecturer) in Widdington, Essex (1684), and then became Vicar of Hoxne, Suffolk (1690). He became perpetual curate (vicar) of Saint James’s, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in 1692 and resigned from Hoxne when he became the Rector of Passenham in 1706.

Throughout those years, Hutchinson was known for his low church latitudinarianism and his sympathy for Protestant dissenters. But he was also a key early figure in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK).

Following the Hanoverian succession, Hutchinson was seen as a dependable Whig. He was a prolific writer, constantly writing pamphlets supporting the Whigs on the great issues of the day, such as the war of Spanish succession.

His tracts repeated Whig ideology and anti-Catholic propaganda. His most famous work, An historical essay concerning witchcraft (1718), defended the Whigs’ social and cultural ideology, advocating sociable forms of religion and condemning unsociable forms of religion such as traditional witchcraft beliefs.

Although there was a widespread belief in and fear of witchcraft, witchcraft trials and executions were extremely rare. The last person in England was executed for witchcraft in Exeter in 1685.

Hutchinson began writing his book on witchcraft in the early 18th century while he was still in Passenham. By then, accusations of witchcraft continued to be made. Occasionally these led to trials, such as the trial of Jane Wenham in Hertfordshire in 1712.

Wenham was acquitted after a bitter and socially disturbing trial that Hutchinson attended. As a result, he became convinced that witchcraft trials posed a serious threat to public order and to social and political stability.

Through the influence of Francis Godolphin (1678-1766), 2nd Earl of Godolphin, Hutchinson became a royal chaplain on 17 March 1715. Then, on the recommendation of two leading Whigs – the Lord Chancellor Thomas Parker (1667-1732), 1st Earl of Macclesfield, and William Wake (1657-1737), Archbishop of Canterbury – he became Bishop of Down and Connor in 1720 following the death of Edward Smith.

Archbishop William King refused to consecrate Hutchinson, leaving the task to a commission formed mainly of English bishops, and he was finally consecrated bishop on 22 January 1721.

Hutchinson soon found he was thoroughly disliked by the other Irish bishops. John Evans, Bishop of Meath, was concerned by his lack of social skill and reluctance to socialise with the other bishops. Other bishops dismissed him as political appointee, eager to collect the income his see offered but indifferent to its spiritual needs. Indeed, he was more concerned with his temporal duties in the House of Lords than with his spiritual duties as a bishop.

In his own diocese, he was denounced by his largely Tory clergy for not being concerned about the large numbers of Presbyterians in the diocese. There, he continued to be a vocal supporter of the Whig and Hanoverian regime, but most of his literary output was concerned with matters religious and economic.

For Hutchinson, Catholicism posed the greatest threat to the Anglican status quo in Ireland. Yet he argued that the Penal Laws, passed from 1691, had failed to achieve the anticipated mass conversion of Catholics. Instead, he encouraged printing religious materials in Irish, such as the Book of Common Prayer, the catechism, a primer, the Psalms and the New Testament.

In his scheme to convert the Irish-speaking Catholic population of Rathlin Island, he built a charity school and church and printed a bilingual catechism, written in a new, easy-to-read, phonetic form of the Irish language he developed.

Hutchinson’s catechism (1722) used a more phonetic writing system that bore a closer resemblance to English than traditional literary Irish. He consequently increased the number of letters in the Irish alphabet from 18 to 26, and printed his Irish translations in a Roman typeface rather than the traditional Gaelic one. But his hope remained that English would supplant Irish as the common language.

He chose Rathlin Island as the site for a pilot scheme because it was one of the few places in his diocese with a large proportion of Irish-speaking Catholics. There was no resident Catholic priest resident on Rathlin to oppose his plans, and in 1722, the bishop confirmed 40 Catholic schoolchildren from Rathlin.

But his Rathlin project was controversial and eventually failed. His reforms of the written Irish language were mocked and condemned by his clergy and bishops. A squib on his versatility, published in Dublin in 1725-1726 as a broadsheet, is attributed to Dean Jonathan Swift.

Eventually, his experience of living among Catholics on his estate near Portglenone (1729-1731) convinced Hutchinson that only a small proportion of Irish Catholics were committed to a bloody rebellion or the slaughter of Protestants.

Hutchinson also wrote pamphlets on the social, cultural, and economic ‘improvement’ of Ireland, suggesting ways to develop fisheries, find employment for the large numbers of poor, make the River Bann more navigable, and drain the bogs around Lough Neagh.

Despite the hostility he faced, Hutchinson remained in the diocese until his death, living first in Lisburn and from 1730 at his new estate in Portglenone, Co Antrim. He died on 23 June 1739 at Portglenone, and was buried two days later under the chancel in the private chapel he built there in 1737.

He was twice married, to Dame Mary Crofts Read and to Peregrine, or Anne, North. His sons-in-law included John Hamilton, Dean of Dromore, and John Ryder, Archbishop of Tuam. His younger brother, Samuel Hutchinson (1666-1748), fought at the Battle of the Boyne, and was the father of: Samuel Hutchinson, Dean of Dromore (1729-1759), Archdeacon of Connor (1736-1759) and Bishop of Killala (1759-1780); Francis Hutchinson, Archdeacon of Down (1733-1768); and James Hutchinson, Vicar of Killead.

Samuel Hutchinson was also the ancestor of Richard Hely-Hutchinson (1756-1825), 1st Earl of Donoughmore, and John Hely-Hutchinson (1757-1832), 2nd Earl of Donoughmore.

Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham, near Stony Stratford … Francis Hutchinson was the Rector of Passenham (1706-1727) and Bishop of Down and Connor (1720-1739) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A Franciscan Blessing for Lent at the end of a USPG webinar

The cloisters in the Franciscan Friary in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, as another week moves towards its close, I am beginning to feel ‘all zoomed-out’ with a number of Zoom meetings and webinars that have included clergy meetings, and community action groups, as well as preparing sermons for Ash Wednesday and the Sunday before Lent, along with a parish funeral that was streamed live by the undertakers.

It seems on-line seminars and meetings are going to be a pattern for the future, long after this pandemic lockdown eases, if it never comes to a final conclusion.

Earlier this week, I was one of more than 300 people who attended the online seminar ‘Past and Present: Pastoral Care across space and time.’ It was organised jointly by the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), of which I am a trustee, and SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge).

Both societies were founded over 300 years ago by the Revd Dr Thomas Day (1656-1730), and this ‘Bray Day’ webinar was a way of marking ‘Founder’s Day.’

USPG was founded by Bray as SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) in 1698, and he founded SPCK three years earlier in 1701.

The webinar discussed pastoral care across time and space, and launched an exhibition of USPG’s archives, which you may be viewed HERE.

Over 300 delegates from 30 different countries attended the webinar, making it USPG’s largest online event to date. Dr Jo Sadgrove (USPG) offered broad reflections on the contents of the archive, Dr Alison Searle and Dr Emily Vine (University of Leeds) presented documents from the archive, and the former Archbishop of Canternury, Bishop Rowan Williams, discussed the archive with journalist Rosie Dawson.

The Revd Dr Carlton Turner, a USPG Trustee, the Right Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover, and the Revd Professor Veront Satchell, Professor of Economic and Landscape History at the University of the West Indies, provided reflections on the archive.

At the end of the webinar, Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin offered this Franciscan Blessing which is a prayer to consider using throughout Lent:

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all God’s children. Amen.

Pastoral care at a distance has always been a challenge for USPG and the Church

‘Pastoral Care across space and time’ … the theme for this year’s Bray Day organised by USPG and SPCK today

Patrick Comerford

Bray Day – the anniversary of the death of Thomas Bray on 15 February 1730 – is marked as Founder’s Day by the two Anglican agencies he was instrumental in founding: USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge).

Bray Day is being marked by both societies this evening (15 February 2021) with an online Founders Day organised by USPG and SPCK.

Over the last year, churches have wrestled with the question: How is pastoral and spiritual care given remotely, at a distance? It’s a question that has been asked before. Indeed, it lies at the heart of USPG and what it means to be a global mission agency.

This Bray Day, USPG is releasing a digital archive, an online exhibition of sources and letters from the time of the society’s foundation. This is the result of work undertaken over the last year by USPG in collaboration with scholars at the University of Leeds, exploring themes of pastoral care in USPG’s archive.

This work focusses on letters exchanged between missionaries in North America and the Caribbean and the society’s headquarters in London. It sheds light on the concerns and issues of pastoral caregiving in the society’s early work as SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel).

Pastoral caregiving remains a critical part of the global work of USPG particularly in the context of Covid-19. This evening will provide a rich exploration of the connections between the past and the present.

The speakers this evening are:

● Bishop Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury
● Dr Alison Searle, University of Leeds
● Dr Jo Sadgrove, USPG

The Revd Thomas Bray (1658-1730) … founder of SPG (now USPG) and SPCK, died on 15 February 1730

The Revd Dr Thomas Bray (1658-1730), an Anglican priest who spent time in Maryland as a missionary, was the founder of both the SPG (now USPG) and SPCK, is commemorated on 15 February in the calendar of the Church of England and several Churches in the Anglican Communion, including the Episcopal Church.

Thomas Bray was born into a humble Shropshire family in 1658 in Marton, near Chirbury, the son of Richard and Mary Bray. The house on Martin Crest is now known as Bray’s Tenement.

The local bishop took notice of young Thomas and felt that with his bright mind he should receive a good education. The bishop sponsored him and paid for his education. Bray was educated at Oswestry School, matriculated at All Souls’ College, Oxford, as a ‘poor boy’ on 12 March 1675, and graduated BA in 1678. He later received the degrees MA (1693), BD and DD (1696).

Thomas Bray was ordained priest in 1682, and he was curate at Bridgnorth before becoming a private chaplain and then Vicar of Over Whitacre and, from 1690-1695, Rector of Saint Giles, Sheldon, in Warwickshire, in the Diocese of Lichfield. There he wrote his Catechetical Lectures, which was dedicated to William Lloyd, Bishop of Lichfield. While he was in Warwickshire, he married is first wife, Eleanor.

Bray appears to have been widowed by 1695, when the Bishop of London, Henry Compton, appointed him as his commissary to organise the struggling Anglican presence in the colony of Maryland.

But his visit to Maryland was long delayed by legal complications, and during that delay, the widowed Thomas Bray married Agnes Sayers of Saint Martin’s-in-the-Fields in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, Holborn, in 1698.

Bray eventually set sail for America in 1699 for his first and only visit. Although he spent only 10 weeks in Maryland, Bray was deeply concerned about the neglected state of the Church in America and the great need for the education of the clergy, the laity people and children.

He radically reorganised and renewed the Church in Maryland, providing for the instruction of children and the systematic examination of candidates for pastoral positions. He also took a great interest in colonial missions, especially among the Native Americans.

At a general visitation of the clergy in Annapolis before his return to England, he emphasised the need for the instruction of children and insisted that no clergyman be given a charge unless he had a good report from the ship he came over in, ‘whether … he gave no matter of scandal, and whether he did constantly read prayers twice a day and catechise and preach on Sundays, which, notwithstanding the common excuses, I know can be done by a minister of any zeal for religion.’

As a result of his visit to Maryland, he proposed a successful scheme for establishing parish libraries in England and America. Bray’s vision was for a library in each parish in America, funded by booksellers and stocked with books donated by authors. These libraries were to encourage the spread of the Anglicanism in the colonies, and were primarily composed of theological works. It was a major endeavour, as at the time the only other public libraries in the American colonies were at a small number of universities.

Back in England, Bray raised money for missionary work and influenced young Anglican priests to go to America. But his efforts to secure the consecration of a bishop for America were unsuccessful.

In England, he also wrote and preached in defence of the rights of enslaved Africans, and of Indians deprived of their land. He worked for the reform of prison conditions, and establishing preaching missions to prisoners. He persuaded General James Oglethorpe to found a colony in Georgia for the settlement of debtors as an alternative to debtors’ prison.

In response to his experiences, Bray was instrumental in establishing both SPCK in 1699 and SPG in 1701.

From 1706 until his death in 1730, he was Vicar of Saint Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, where he continued his philanthropic and literary pursuits. He served the parish with energy and devotion, while continuing his efforts on behalf of African slaves in America and in founding parish libraries.

By the time he died on 15 February 1730 at the age of 74, Bray had succeeded in establishing 80 libraries in England and Wales and 39 in America.

Writing in the current edition of the USPG Prayer Diary, Dr Jo Sadgrove, one of this evening’s speakers, says pastoral care remains ‘a critical concern to USPG.’
She writes: ‘Examining the connections between the original SPG story and the present work of the Society reveals a continuous thread of innovation in pastoral caregiving. This influences USPG’s thinking about its unique mission and role in a global crisis, and ensures that the founding ideals of Thomas Bray and his contemporaries are kept alive.’

Thomas Bray was Vicar of Saint Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, from 1706 until his death in 1730 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Finding a Comerford home at an unusual address in London

Bartlett’s Buildings in the mid-19th century … a watercolour drawing by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (1858)

Patrick Comerford

In recent genealogical researches, I came across a notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine of the death on 6 October 1812 of ‘The wife of Mr James Comerford, of Bartlett’s Buildings, Holborn’ (p. 495).

Despite the name of this newspaper, it was not regarded as ungentlemanly in Regency London over 200 years ago, nor was it unusual, that the dead woman’s own name was not given in a notice like this. But with a little further research I was able to confirm this woman’s identity, and I started asking questions about Bartlett’s Buildings and what sort of place it was.

‘Mrs Comerford’ was born Anne (or Sarah) Suffolk and may have had a Jewish mother, according to a tradition among her Comerford descendants. There was also a tradition – later dismissed in the family – that her father was one of the many illegitimate sons of King George III. George III had no illegitimate children, although his sons, including George IV and William IV, provided him with at least 56 illegitimate grandchildren. However, Anne Suffolk is not named in any accounts of the illegitimate children of these monarchs.

Anne Suffolk was living in the parish of Saint Andrew when she married James Comerford (1787-1833) of Change Alley in Cornhill, London, on 6 March 1805.

This James Comerford was a son of Thomas Comerford, who may have been born ca 1757-1760 in Ireland. Thomas Comerford and his wife Anne lived in Bartlett’s Buildings in Holborn, London.

Family tradition says Thomas Comerford came from Ireland. However, Ashworth-Hill, in his paper on the Bosworth Crucifix, which was in the possession of James Comerford’s family from around 1810, wonders whether this Comerford family was related to the Comerford family who lived in Saint Michael’s Parish in Coventry in the first half of the 19th century.

Thomas Comerford’s son, James Comerford, married Anne Suffolk in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, and she died, as the Gentleman’s Magazine reported, on 6 October 1812. This James Comerford started the book collection that was continued by their son, also James Comerford (1806-1881), a Victorian book collector and antiquarian.

Saint Andrew’s, the church where Anne and James Comerford were married, is the largest of Sir Christopher Wren’s surviving City churches, and Grade I-listed building. It was built in 1684-1690 to replace a mediaeval church of Saxon origin that survived the Great Fire but then fell into decay.

Marc Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom, was married there in 1799, and Benjamin Disraeli was baptised in the church as a 12-year-old in 1817.

James Comerford and Anne Suffolk were married in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, in 1805 (Photograph: Diliff/Wikipedia)

Bartlett’s Buildings was an unusual address, and it sounded more like a 20th century council or social housing development than the address I expected for notaries and lawyers. The area is no longer found in London, and I wondered what sort of a place it was.

It turns out that Bartlett’s Buildings has interesting associations with Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), is named in one of her books by Jane Austen, and was a fashionable residential area in the early 19th century for people in the legal professions.

Bartlett’s Buildings once known as Bartlett’s Court, was the name of a street, off Holborn Circus in the City of London, known for the number of lawyers who had offices there. It was a cul-de-sac but an alley ran from the west side to Fetter Lane that was known as Bartlett’s Passage.

Bartlett’s Buildings was on the south side of Holborn. In the early 17th century, it was known as Bartlett’s Court, and it is named as early as November 1615, when it is referred to in the burial register of Saint Andrew’s, the parish church where Anne and James Comerford were married.

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), which was founded in 1698 by the Revd Thomas Bray, had its first offices in Bartlett’s Buildings, and remained there until well into the mid-19th century, and holding weekly meetings there. Bray was also the founder in 1701 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Anglican mission agency known as USPG (the United Society Partners in the Gospel).

John Strype, in A survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, described Bartlett’s Buildings in 1720 as ‘a very handsome spacious Place, graced with good Buildings of Brick, with Gardens behind the Houses.’ He says the place is ‘very well inhabited by Gentry, and Persons of good Repute.’

Henry Chamberlain’s survey in 1770 said: ‘Bartlet’s-buildings is a very handsome spacious place, graced with good houses of brick, with gardens behind them, and is principally inhabited by gentlemen.’

At the time the Comerford family was living there, Bartlett’s Buildings are named by Jane Austen in her novel Sense and Sensibility (1811) as the place where the two Miss Steeles lodge when visiting their cousin.

The street was once home to the Farringdon Dispensary and Lying-in Charity, and is depicted in 1858 in a watercolour drawing by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.

The street was totally destroyed during a World War II air raid in 1941, and was later replaced by New Fetter Lane.

As for Saint Andrew’s Church, where Anne and James Comerford were married, it too was destroyed in the Blitz on 16 April 1941. It was rebuilt in 1960-1961 by Seely and Paget and became a guild church. Instead of ministering to a fixed geographical area, guild churches minister to congregations made up of people working in the area and their liturgical life is centred on weekday lunchtime services. They tend to work closely with local businesses – by hosting their company carol services, for example – and City livery companies. The Guild Vicar is the Right Revd Jonathan Baker, Bishop of Fulham.

An integral part of Saint Andrew’s raison d’être is being open to everyone, and the church also fulfils its mission through ‘The Listening Service,’ offering free counselling to City workers in high pressure jobs who are experiencing psychological strain. This uses the worship space itself, and not a separate room.

Saint Andrew’s benefits from a prominent location by a traffic interchange between one of the main streets into the City and north-south routes across London. The church is open during business hours and makes toilets available to visitors. A stand for votive candles in the north aisle has a prayer request board, and there is a special welcome for homeless people.

Bartlett’s Buildings make an appearance in Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1811) … a window display in the Cambridge University Press Bookshop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)